


Remember Me as in a Dream

by UnhealthilyObsessedFangirl



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Cussing, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Fay is Fai, Fay is still a little shit, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Underage, Poor Fay, Slow Burn-ish, Tags Are Hard, summaries are hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 03:01:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15548145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnhealthilyObsessedFangirl/pseuds/UnhealthilyObsessedFangirl
Summary: Kurogane Suwa is a man going no where with his life. After several years of military service to escape his fracturing family, he finds himself wondering through his days with no reason for living. Until he meets Fai, a happy-go-lucky stranger who is running from his past. Kurogane sees easily through Fai's facade to the terrified man underneath, and finds perhaps the one person more alone than he is. But helping Fai isn't just difficult; it's dangerous. As Kurogane is drawn towards the man who feels more familiar than he should, he encounters dangers and love, and realizes that old wounds never really go away.





	1. Some Have Names But Most Do Not

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Yes, yes I know I'm like 700 years late to this fandom, but I thought I might as well post anyways for people who still visit and are hardcore Tsubasa fans like myself! I'm not the best at summaries, so let me just say that this story will be (hopefully) full of mystery, suspense, agonizingly angsty romance, and much, much more. I really hope you enjoy and share your thoughts and opinions with me :)
> 
> P.S. the title is from "The Trapeze Swinger" by Iron and Wine who you should totally check out if you haven't already. The rest of the titles will be from songs I listen to for each chapter.
> 
> Happy reading!  
> ***
> 
> "Ships are launching from my chest  
> Some have names but most do not..."  
> \-- Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face

_“That’s certainly an interesting bracelet you’ve got there, young man,” his father says. Kurogane blinks blurrily, looking around. His mother and father are seated across from him at the dinner table, drinking the red wine they only get out on special occasions. As he watches, his father nods at something next to him and gestures with his glass. Kurogane turns._

_The first thing he sees is a wrist. His father is right; the bracelet is quite different than anything he’s ever seen. It’s a phoenix made of thin silver links, the wings wrapping around the arm to hold it in place. The beak points towards the elbow with a delicate mouth and cutout eyes, and the tail travels down the hand where it wraps around a slim middle finger._

_Slowly, the man withdraws his hand and picks up his own wine glass. Kurogane is the only one not drinking it seems. He’s only sixteen though, so he supposes it makes sense. He looks again at his companion, but the man’s face is a soft blur of pale colors and golden hair._

_“Thank you, Mr. Suwa. It’s a family heirloom actually, from my mother’s side.”_

_It seems odd, the fact that he knows this voice, he knows this bracelet, but the face escapes him. His companion is tall, thin, beautiful. But that’s where Kurogane’s knowledge fails. What do his eyes look like? His mouth? Surely, Kurogane knew once. Surely it’s still somewhere in his brain, waiting to come ripping forwards. But the man’s face remains a blur, even as he lifts his fork with a bite of chicken, and places it on his tongue._

_The three adults at the table continue to discuss quietly. The unknown man tells the Suwa’s of his time in an orphanage, his travels with his brother that dissolve into ridiculous tales of wooed women and teenage foolishness. They tell him of their time in college, where they met, and the like. Where Kurogane was born, his first day of preschool, his little league team. It’s all perfectly normal._

_But Kurogane is baffled. Here he is eating dinner, with his parents and a nameless, faceless man who feels like an old friend and is treated like a guest of honor._

_“Kurogane, darling, are you feeling all right?” his mother asks, looking at him over her rice. She’s worried, has that little crease between her eyebrows, and he realizes that she must’ve been calling his name for a while. He starts to say something but before he can, the man moves._

_He lifts that pale hand, fingers moving delicate through the air—like a dance. Always dancing. The man is long and lean and gangly and awkward, can’t walk without tripping on his own feet, but his hands are beautiful, move like there’s a song no one else can hear but him—and places a cool palm to Kurogane’s face._

_His mouth goes bone dry, like he’s been walking in the desert for days, weeks. His stomach thrills into his chest with sharp little kicks. Ba-bum ba-bum ba-bum--_

_The cold of the phoenix is startling, and then so is the man’s flesh, chilled from his wine glass. “He feels a little hot,” the man says, and Kurogane can almost picture a frown on a perfect, pale face. “Bit of a low fever.”_

_“’m fine,” Kurogane mumbles, glancing away._

_The man’s fingers remain at his hairline long after his assessment, and eventually Kurogane pulls back. Slowly, the man drops his hand back to his side, almost reluctantly. Kurogane can feel the warmth on his face, the whole new choking sensation that comes from embarrassment. Why does he feel like this? Why does his skin burn where the man touched him?_

_His mother tuts and slaps her husband’s arm, distracting Kurogane. “I told you, you were working him too hard in the dojo! With school and wrestling he doesn’t have time for your obsession.”_

_His father shrugs. “He’s almost seventeen. A little hard work does him good.”_

_She gives him a look from the very corner of her eye. “And yet when you were seventeen all you had time for was chasing girls and fighting in the parking lot.”_

_Kurogane’s father gives a stern look that he can tell is just a tease. “And that’s why I discipline Kurogane: so he can be a better man than I am.” And then he turns, with a sudden fondness on his face that is one-hundred percent authentic and lifts his cup to his son. “He already is.”_

_His mother smiles and lifts her glass as well. “To Kurogane,” she says._

_“To Kurogane,” echoes the man._

_Kurogane doesn’t understand why a stranger’s words are the ones he craves most._

            He drops his pen with a disgusted sigh. He hadn’t even realized he’d been falling asleep at his desk, not until the dream crept up on him. Family dinners? Faceless men? Kurogane shakes his head angrily.

            His dream feels like a memory, but those are only so reliable with him; one day he was a high schooler, attending classes, hanging out with friends, playing sports. And the next he was in a hospital, not knowing how he got there. A fall, said his mother. Four stories. She never mentioned how he fell, or why he was on the fourth floor when their apartment was on the third, or, most importantly, why it felt like something was missing when she recounted his junior year.

            But that’s what he has; memories of classes and boys in wrestling uniforms, and then sterile white walls. When they first drove back from the hospital, all Kurogane could see was the window above his bedroom, the one where he supposedly fell from. It was clear the apartment was empty, even from the outside; despite its pristine conditions, it looked as if no one had occupied it in years. It had been empty when the Suwa family moved in and, according to his mother, had stayed that way.

            Sometimes Kurgoane thinks about that portion of his life, confined to the bed while his head knitted itself back together, and thinks that maybe the doctors made a mistake; his brain feels as empty as that apartment.

            He asked to go inside once. After the police tape was taken down. He went to the bedroom and opened the window. His fingers found the ledge on the outside, two inches of pebbled concrete. He stared at his hands, trying to remember if he hung on, if his fingers were torn open on the rough surface, trying to keep himself from going over. There were bruises on his arms that still hadn’t quite healed. He studied the lines, the marks that had faded into soft yellow patches along the back of one wrist then wrapped around to the front.

           If he hung on at all, he probably didn’t do it by himself.

           So who held him?

 

           After another hour of his eyes slowly closing, Kurogane decides—infuriating as it is—to call it a day. He’s exhausted; not the yawning, rubbing your eyes kind of tired, but the dead-while-walking, bone-deep pressure that settles on your joints and clings to you after weeks of not sleeping.

           Not from lack of trying. In the military, Kurogane was a good sleeper. His officers told them to get some rest and that was what he did; close your eyes, shut up and let your brain cool itself down for a few hours.

           Even after deaths and gunshots and men screaming as they died, he still closed his eyes every time he was told without so much as a roll or yawn first.

            And now, in the goddamned city on a fancy featherbed that Tomoyo insisted would be good for his back, the only thing that comes when he shuts his eyes are dreams. Nightmares. Memories. Whatever you want to call them.

            Dying soldiers, screaming for their families before they go quiet. Tomoyo sobbing in his arms after a date. His mother, shriveled and grey like the last time he saw her alive. A man with no face that makes Kurogane’s heart _pound_.

 _Ghosts of the past_. As far as Kurogane is concerned, they should all just fuck off back to their graves.


	2. Some Kind of Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane has a session with the worst fucking therapist he's ever met. He is not happy about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, thanks for the kudos on the last chapter! I've always been pretty nervous to post my stuff so seeing that people like it is always really nice :) I'm still trying to work out the first few chapters so it'll probably be pretty slow. But bear with me and it'll hopefully pick up soon!  
> Happy reading :)
> 
> ***  
> "I can't get these memories out of my mind,  
> And some kind of madness has started to evolve..."  
> \--Madness by Muse

Souma is waiting on the corner outside his apartment the next morning. Without missing a beat, she starts jogging as soon as he meets her, and they keep pace. It’s a little chilly out, their breath making steaming clouds in front of their faces, but Kurogane finds he doesn’t mind the cold; it keeps away a decent amount of the normal joggers and gives him some time to think. With just him and Souma, everything feels simple. It’s nice without the city breathing down his neck.

            “How’s her highness?” he asks, as they round the corner towards the park.

            He can practically _hear_ the grimace she sports as she says, “Swollen. Miserable. And you know that place with the lemon chicken? Forty-fifth street?”

            He grunts.

            “Out of business.”

            Kurogane winces. He’s known Souma and Amaterasu since they were all teenagers, and he even walked her little sister, Tomoyo, down the aisle when the two got married. But if there was one thing he’d rather die than face, it was a fire-breathing, pregnant Amaterasu who couldn’t get the lemon chicken she wanted.

            “Guess you’re shit out of luck.”

            “Yeah, no fucking duh, man,” she says. “I slept on the couch because she insisted on calling Tomoyo to complain and kicked me out of the bedroom for _privacy._ ” She makes little air quotations when she says the last word and shakes her head.

            They stop for water. “Aren’t you the lucky one,” Kurogane says.

            And despite her complaints, Souma _beams._ “Yeah. I am.”

           

            His apartment door is unlocked when the two get back from their run. Nothing’s been taken; his wallet is still where he left it and his guns are in the nightstand.

            He still has to sit against the wall and put his head between his knees to make the world stop spinning.

           

            “I forgot to lock the door,” Kurogane says. He’s ramrod straight in the huge blue chair Yuuko keeps for her clients. His fingers scrape over rumples in its overstuffed arms. He hates the stupid chair, and all its plushy soft cushions, and the stupid white carpet, and the stupid smug look on his therapist’s face as she turns from her computer.

            “Hmm?”

            “I always lock the door. And yesterday I forgot.”

            Yuuko widens her eyes. Despite being so pale that she blends in with the walls, with hair so dark and blunt that she looks like some kind of ancient goddess, Kurogane has always thought her most striking feature is her eyes. One look and she can dissect someone, take them apart inch by bloody inch like a body in a morgue. He's been visiting for almost four months, and every time she looks at him he still has to fight the urge to argue with her over each little glance. “My, what a change of routine. Was all this… voluntary?”

           He snorts. “Hardly.”

           She makes that little humming sound again and crosses her fingers to make a resting place for her chin. When she leans forward, the pale cut of skin above her top spills forwards and Kurogane resists the urge to sigh.

           “It’s a big deal?”

            Kurogane frowns. “Of course. Anyone could’ve walked in off the street and stolen my things. They could’ve killed me in my sleep if it was night. Or hurt Tomoyo—”

           “Who you don’t live with anymore,” she says.

           “—if she was staying the night,” he finishes with a glare. “It would’ve been my fault for being careless. Complacent.”

           For a long moment Yuuko studies him through eyes so lidded he almost can’t tell that they’re open. And then she takes a breath. “Tell me, Kurogane, is breaking a routine really that bad?”

           “In the military—”

            “Yes, yes, in the military it can be disastrous. Deadly, even. But you’re no longer in the military. You live a normal civilian life with normal civilian neighbors. You’re in a decent part of town in an apartment that can’t be entered without a keycode. And yet you believe someone will manage to steal everything from you.”

             Kurogane looks away, down at the floor where his shoes have left indents in the pristine rug. “There’s not much left to steal,” he says.

            “No? Then why not leave your door open every night? Might as well unlock the windows too,” she goads.

            “That’s not how things work.” He’s trying not to take the bait, trying to keep his cool. Yuuko is unlike any other therapist he’s had, always trying to get a rise out of him. _Real emotion_ , she says. _None of those meaningless thoughts you walk around with from nine to five_.

             “But you just said—”

             “ _Look,_ ” interrupts Kurogane. “None of this would be happening if I wasn’t so _fucking tired_ that I can’t even go to work without passing out. If you would just prescribe me the sleeping pills I asked for, then maybe I’d be able to make sure I don’t get _robbed_ in my _sleep._ ”

              And instead of backing down or acting apologetic, Yuuko just smirks. “We’ve discussed this before, Kurogane. I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m not allowed to prescribe medication, even if I think it would be to the benefit of my patient.”

              “You think it would? Benefit me, I mean.”

              She smiles. “No. I could ask an old gang member to knock you out every night, but I’m not too sure you’d wake up in the mornings.”

              Kurogane can’t help the disgusted grunt that leaves his throat. “My dreams are strange and invasive and violent. Isn’t that enough?”

             “Perhaps _memories_ can often be confusing when they resurface.”

              He growls and pushes to his feet. “Not this bullshit _again._ You’d think any normal psychiatrist wouldn’t be trying to kickstart the second coming of the Satanic Panic with resurfaced fake memories.”

            She grins, that shit eating grin that makes him want to pick up her desk and throw it out the window. “I’m not a normal shrink, am I?”

            Slowly, his blood pressure lowers back to normal as he stares at her and her stupid face. And then he folds himself back into the obscenely plush couch. “No,” he says. “You’re the worst fucking shrink I ever met.”

 

            Over the rest of their session, Yuuko tells him again about the link between PTSD and Obsessive-Compulsive disorders. People who go through trauma often fixate on a certain routine or part of their trauma that they believe was in some way linked to the incident occurring. A man who was in a car crash may fix his engine excessively before leaving the house, or a woman who was robbed may lock her doors and check them multiple times a night. Kurogane doesn’t know why getting shot at in a desert makes his heart race when he hears someone walk down the hallway above him or why he’s suddenly become an insomniac, but he’s catalogued everything she’s told him anyways.

            He secretly thinks she likes retelling him about it so she can rub it in that he’s a fucked up piece of trash that the military discarded as soon as it wasn’t needed anymore.

            He already knows that.

            But when he gets home, he switches up his routine and takes off his shoes and jacket _before_ he deadbolts the door to his apartment, per her recommendation. It doesn’t make his heart race like he thought it would. It just makes him annoyed.

            “Come back a little early next week, Kurogane,” Yuuko had said as he was headed for the door. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

            He _hopes_ that it’s an actual psychiatrist who can give him the kind of tranquilizers he’s requested, and not the gang member who will knock him out with a bat. Though, he supposes, a nice scuffle with some thug might make him feel a bit better.

            Tomoyo calls that night. Skypes, facetimes. Whatever the fuck you call it. She comes across his phone in a blurry little picture that’s frozen more often than not.

            “Kurogane,” she smiles, “how is everything?”

            And just for one long bitter moment, Kurogane thinks of her all the way over in France, traveling from place to place with the rest of the foreign exchange students, and he hates her. He remembers her shoes by the door next to his, the smell of her pancakes on Saturday mornings, and thinks of his back against the wall, hands over his ears while he tried to breathe through the sound of his heartbeat consuming him. He hates his best friend for leaving.

            And yet he was the one who told her to go.

            “It’s alright,” he says.

            For a long moment she’s silent, and Kurogane can’t tell if she’s frozen.

            “Just alright?” she asks, and the disappointment is clear in her tone.

            He thinks. “Your sister is about ready to kill Souma. Souma is becoming lazy now that she’s almost a mom. Yuuko has a surprise for me our next visit.”

            Tomoyo laughs, and for just a moment that’s all he needs to forgive her. “Hopefully a nice surprise.”

            They chat a bit more. Meaningless things. Tomoyo tells him of her classes and adventures while he grunts, makes comments about the weather. She says she misses him. He nods. And then finally she says she has to go because another girl’s voice crackles over the speaker, begging Tomoyo to hurry up and hang up the phone _\- can’t we go to that party already?_

His tongue tastes funny in his mouth. Too large and awkward and full of things he thinks he should’ve said but couldn’t.

            He swallows them and crawls in bed and tells himself that even if he dreams of faceless men and blood on his hands, it doesn’t mean Yuuko knows a damn thing about resurfacing memories.

            She’s the worst fucking therapist he’s ever met, anyways.

            At least he’s not the one paying for her.


	3. In My Past, Bittersweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kurogane tries to work like normal and can barely even manage that. Especially with some random kid following him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, back with another chapter! I'd like to say thank you again for kudos and comments because they really make me inspired to work! With that said, I suppose I should go ahead and tell you that while my update schedule is not set by any means, I will try with the best of my ability to get weekly updates out.  
> This weeks chapter is still a little slow but I plan on fixing that in the next one. And without further ado, please enjoy!  
> Happy reading :)
> 
> ***  
> "In my past, bittersweet,  
> There's no love between the sheets..."  
> \--Shake Me Down by Cage the Elephant

            Kurogane wakes up with his own name ringing in his ears, the image of a phantom hand reaching for him, trying to _save_ him—

            He lurches up in bed, feeling sick with the air rushing past his body, and becomes acutely aware of his heart pounding in his chest, his lungs _heaving_. The sheets are tangled around his legs, and he can’t stand it, can’t take the feeling of being trapped. He rips his way upright, dragging the blankets halfway across his bedroom before they become dislodged.

            Kurogane paces the hallway of his apartment until the sweat on his back cools. His head is racing, trying to remember more of the dream. There was the faceless man, like always. He was crying, trying to say something. And someone _else_ … someone with a gun? But it’s no use. The dream is already slipping away, allowing his heart to slow to normal.

            When he finally calms down, Kurogane looks at the clock and curses. He’s late for his morning workout.

 

            When he finishes his workout and has showered off all the sweat from both bad dreams and exercise, he sits himself down at his desk and starts going through paperwork. The studio technically belongs to Amaterasu and Tomoyo. Their parents used to run a small boutique but when they passed away, Amaterasu gifted the space to Souma to open up her dream gym.

            Kurogane thought for a long while that if the perk of dating a rich girl is that you get your own gym, then he should’ve signed up a long time ago. Of course, actually meeting the stone-cold Amaterasu and becoming such close friends with her little sister put him off of women like them altogether.

            When Kurogane got back from his deployment, the first thing Souma did was ask him to help her run it. So he did. Together, the two manage to keep the little place running smoothly. Their customers are a small group, mainly elderly women and young adults, but loyal. Kurogane will never admit it, but there are several he can recognize by sight and even _likes,_ despite their horrible jokes and overly friendly conversations. It helps that he and Souma alternate different classes—and he doesn’t have to see the same faces all the time—to keep the regulars busy and coming back and new people coming in. Souma teaches self-defense and yoga periodically through the year, and Kurogane likes to channel some of his father’s teachings and run classes for different martial arts forms. When they don’t have classes running, people often come in to use the small cardio room or the free weights in the back. He’s proud of the place he’s built, and he’s glad he gets to work with one of his best friends every day, even if she does drive him up the wall with all her unwarranted relationship advice.

            Unfortunately, running their own business comes with paperwork, which Kurogane believes can fuck off.

            He looks up after an hour of miserable sorting when the door opens and Souma comes in bearing coffee. “Black,” she says, setting it on his desk.

            He takes a grateful drink as she throws down her bag and flops into her desk chair. After his conversation with Tomoyo the night before, he doesn’t really feel like hearing about her big sister, so he carefully avoids looking at the bags under Souma’s eyes and the hickey on her neck and definitely doesn’t ask about Souma’s ridiculous smitten face.

            For a long while, the two work in silence. And then Souma jerks her head up and looks towards the door. “Hey, did you invite that one kid again?”

            Kurogane frowns. “One kid?”

            “Yeah—you know, brown hair, brown-ish eyes. Maybe sixteen?”

            It does ring a bell, actually. The kids been hanging around the shop, asking for volunteer work for a few days in exchange for time at the gym. The first few days Kurogane just turned him away and told him to get lost. But when he kept showing up, eventually he just ignored him.

            But hey, he supposes if the kid’s stuck around this long then he must have a damn good reason.

            Souma puts away her papers and smooths her hair back with her customary headband. “Yoga time,” she says with a smirk. “You should go talk to him.”

            He flips her off but his eyes stay trained on the windows at the front of the shop.

            The boy jumps about a foot in the air when Kurogane rips open the door. It’s still early outside, and it looks like it’s just getting ready to drizzle. The boy has been leaning against the window with his hood pulled up, but it’s clear the thin fabric isn’t doing much to keep him warm.

            He really does look like Souma said, even if she just was being an ass. His hair is the color of sand, and his eyes aren’t much different. Maybe seventeen. Probably younger. He’s a thin, lanky thing, and it’s clear from his stance that he’s expecting trouble. He probably thinks he’s about to get run off again, or shooed away. But there’s something about his jaw, the way he’s clenching his teeth and staring up as best he can that makes Kurogane believe he won’t give up without a fight.

            _Just fucking great_.

            “Don’t you have school or something to be getting ready for?” Kurogane snaps.

            The boy jerks and stares. And then shakes his head.

            Kurogane frowns. “You a dropout?”

            “…Homeschooled.”

            The kid is obviously lying, or at least not telling the full truth. But far be it from Kurogane to pry into any little street urchin’s past. He’s not some kind of charity orphanage humanitarian person.

            The kid fumbles the broom Kurogane throws at him. “If you’re going to scare the customers off, at least look busy. Sweep the bathrooms when you’re done.”

            The kid’s face goes from confused to all excitement and painfully childish hope. “Yes, sir!” he says, and starts cleaning the area.

            Kurogane curses himself and the mess he’s just gotten himself into.

 

            Souma comes out of the studio room a few hours later and stops by Kurogane’s desk. “He’s cleaning the sinks. And wearing _an apron_.” 

            Kurogane doesn’t even indulge her. “His name is Syaoran. He’s our new custodian.”

            Souma glares. “That is _not_ what I had in mind by ‘talk to him’, Kurogane. You know he’s just more paperwork, right?”

            He lifts up the packet he’s halfway through signing. Souma rolls her eyes, but it’s clear that he’s won this round. She tells him that she’s meeting Amaterasu at a OB appointment but will be back after. Kurogane tells her he doesn’t give a fuck because he’s heading out to get lunch anyways.

            He sees Syaoran watching their encounter. And just because the kid looks so pitiful, he takes him too. There’s a deli a fifteen minute drive from the gym and Kurogane heads for his black Volvo, trying to ignore the little shadow two steps behind him.

            It’s clear the boy doesn’t quite know what to do with himself once in the car. He curls on himself so much that the seat cover all but swallows him. It’s painful to watch, even from the corner of his eye. Kurogane sighs.

            “You like sandwiches?”

            Syaoran jerks his head and then nods.

            “Good,” Kurogane hmphs and then resolves not to speak again.

            There’s only three other customers in the store when they arrive. Kurogane gets in line and orders a large meatball sub for himself—extra black pepper, thank you very much. Syaoran looks horribly embarrassed when he tells him to order too, but finally settles on a small turkey on wheat. Kurogane frowns, looking at the skinny kid, but tells himself not to ask as the cashier gives him his change.

            Syaoran isn’t his kid, so whatever.

            They eat in—surprise—more awkward silence. The boy won’t even look at him as he picks over his food, and Kurogane tries not to roll his eyes as he reassesses. All of the earlier confidence from the store seems to be gone and instead the kid is shifty and awkward. Kurogane doesn’t remember being this skittish when he was the kid’s age, or being a little walking contradiction that only has a back bone fifty-percent of the time. Then again, he is missing a substantial chunk of memories from his teenage years. So, there’s that.

            Still, when they get back in the car, Kurogane tries to will down his irrational irritation; it’s not the kid’s fault that he has anger issues and neurotic tendencies.

            “You got a girlfriend or something?” he asks, finally, once he gets tired of Syaoran staring holes through his floor boards.

            And to his surprise Syaoran turns pink from his hairline all the way down to his shirt collar. “N-no,” he stammers out. “No one. No one at all. I—I mean—"

            “Okay. Whatever. Don’t have an aneurysm.”

            More silence. They’re almost back to the gym and he just wants to get out of this fucking car.

            Kurogane opens his mouth and then closes it, wrings his left hand around the steering wheel a few times. The seams of the leather against his palm is soothing, the satisfying knowledge of every piece pulled together perfectly snug, exactly as it's meant to be. Like clockwork. Like fate bringing two complementary pieces together. He closes his eyes—just for a moment. Just to try and calm himself and—

           “ _Watch out!”_ shouts Syaoran.

           Kurogane's eyes flash open and he looks up just in time to see someone run out of an alleyway—and right in front of his car.

           The world _explodes._


	4. Because I Adore You So

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another meeting with a mysterious person that drudges up memories? Kurogane is really not in the mood for all this making-friends shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all! Back again with a chapter that is probably kind of confusing and odd but is all that seemed to come to mind. Kurogane is a very angsty confused guy in this story and won't be getting any breaks soon if I can help it haha. Any comments or suggestions are always a big encouragement so let me know what you think :)  
> Happy reading! :)
> 
> ***  
> "You make me sick because I adore you so,  
> I love all the dirty tricks and twisted games you play on me..."  
> \--Space Dementia by Muse

Kurogane’s eyes flash open and he looks up just in time to see someone run out of an alleyway—and right in front of his car.

            The world _explodes…_

 

            _There are tears on his face, and maybe blood. Somewhere, there’s a metallic bang and then cursing. A door slamming shut behind the echoes of two sets of footfalls. A person is sobbing, awful horrible sounds, like they might be dying. They barely sound human, and even if he can’t move, can barely even breathe, all the hairs on the back of Kurogane’s neck rise as the sounds get closer._

_“Y—you killed him! You killed him!”_

_“I said be_ quiet _!”_

_A meaty thunk followed by a body hitting the ground. Suddenly the harsh, heaving breaths are much closer, only inches from Kurogane’s face. If only he could open his eyes—if only he could move or say something._

I’m alive. Please, I’m not dead. I’m not—

            “ _Don’t touch me!” shrieks the sobbing person. A man._ The man _. Someone beautiful. Someone Kurogane knows._

_A hand touches his shoulder, gingerly, and then flutters away. “Kurogane?”_ he _whispers. And then there’s more sobbing. Worse this time, somehow. Broken. Crumbling, like that phoenix bracelet_ the man _loves so much. Disintegrating into ash and scattering into the wind, like Kurogane’s bones, his blood, his breath._

_He’s falling to pieces, right along with Kurogane’s body._

_Suddenly, a gasp. “No, don’t!”_ the man _shouts, but his words are cut off in a scream, and Kurogane feels the air move as he’s wrenched away. “Let go! Let go—”_

_Kurogane_ has to get up _. He has to help—to save him! But he can’t move, can barely breathe through the numbness consuming his entire body. He’s cold, freezing everywhere expect for his lip where blood is welling and runs over his chin._

_He hears the sound of_ the man _struggling, trying to get away, and his scream of pain when he fails. He’s being taken away, dragged away from Kurogane to someplace where he’s in danger. Where he’ll be hurt._

Stop! Don’t touch him! _Kurogane is screaming. Screaming and thrashing and fighting, silently, inside his head. Like a dead thing. His useless body is still and emotionless, bleeding from his lips and who knows what else. He can’t feel the hurt, but he knows he’s in bad shape._

_But nothing matters if he can’t save_ that man _._

_It’s tiny, so small he almost doesn’t notice; his pinky twitches._

_But Kurogane crows, urging his body faster. He can feel his chin, his nose and lips, and becomes acutely aware of the weight of each individual muscle._

_He pries, tenses, begs, screaming at himself to hurry—_

_His eyes open and—God he’s done it, he’s fucking done it!_

_He’s greeted by a slanted line of balconies, and behind that, the sky. There’s so many stars it’s dizzying, terrifying. Like being swallowed. Kurogane can’t look away, can’t do anything as the shadows in his peripheral grow further away, the yells fading…_

_He can only see the stars._

_***_

_Kurogane wakes up in his bed sweating and shaking and he thinks there might be tears on his face. His breath rushes out of him in great sobs and there’s words that he doesn’t even understand pouring out of his mouth. He’s begging for something, for someone…_

_The door slams inwards, his mother throwing on the light._

_“Kurogane!” she cries, “Kurogane, what is it?”_

_And all at once Kurogane remembers, opens his mouth—_

_“He’s gone! They took him! He’s—he’s gone! He’s gone!”_

_His mother’s face is pale and tight, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle that’s too cracked to ever be put to rights. She steps towards the bed and he can barely feel her hands on his shoulders, trying to force him back towards the mattress where he’s attempting to stand. He’s already got ahold of his crutches but she pushes him back._

_“Kurogane, you need to calm down,” she says. But he can’t—how can he be calm when… when the man is missing?_

_…the man? Who is the man? Why can’t_ he remember _?_

_“Kurogane, listen to me. Listen—_ Youou _.”_

_His head snaps to her at that. His name, his real name that only she and his father know. He hasn’t heard it in years, and yet here is his mother, sitting on his bed in the middle of the night with her robe on and hair a mess. All the saliva leaves his mouth, some instinctual part of his brain that says he has to prepare himself for whatever happens next._

_“Mom?” he whispers. “I can’t find him.”_

_And his mother reaches for him and her palm is warm and dry against his cheek, a comfort that he wants to wrap himself in. She looks her son in the eyes and Kurogane is so sure that she is going to help, that she’s going to tell him that—that the man is_ safe _and everything is fine._

_Instead she squeezes him and says, “Who are you talking about, Kurogane? There’s no man.”_

_Kurogane can’t believe what he’s hearing. He jerks back and shakes his head. “Mom, it’s the—_ the man. _The one—_ You know him _.”_

_“Kurogane, there isn’t a man. It was just a dream.”_

_He’s dumbfounded. Why is she saying this? Why doesn’t she remember. Surely even she knows, she_ knows _him. They’ve met for Christ’s sake. And yet Kurogane is pushed back onto the bed and he can’t seem to fight as his mother pulls the blankets up to his shoulders._

_“It’s just a dream,” she whispers to him. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”_

_But she hesitates, there by the door. And the look on her face when she turns off the light is strange. Sad. Mournful._ Who is she mourning?

_“I love you, Youou,” she says._

_The door closes before he can reply._

            He’s in the car. The fucking car. And his hand is on the steering wheel and that terrible sound—God is that him?

            His fingers twitch away and the horn cuts off, leaving a silence that’s too big to fill the space surrounding him. Kurogane’s foot is still on the break. His left hand is still on the steering wheel.

            The passenger door is open.

            Kurogane doesn’t know if his legs will hold him when he opens the door, but before he even knows it he’s put the car in park and is clambering around the front. Syaoran is crouched there, talking calmly to someone, and he looks up in alarm when Kurogane staggers over.

            The man on the ground doesn’t even flinch when Kurogane reaches down and shoves Syaoran out of the way.

            “You got _a fucking death wish_?” he roars.

And then he becomes acutely aware of who he is talking to. The man is… the first word that comes to mind is _pale._ And it’s true. He’s wearing some kind of uniform, black and formal, but his face and just there, at the dip in his collar Kurogane sees skin so white it doesn’t look real. Like a ghost, some figment of his imagination that is making him see this long, thin figure. But the hands emerging from dark sleeves are also pale, knicks visible along slender fingers. And Kurogane wants to grab those hands, wants to feel for himself that the man is really _there_ —though he can’t understand why.

            The second word that comes to mind? Blue.

            Under a shroud of yellow hair—also pale, almost silver. Ethereal—two eyes stare out, so blue that it almost knocks Kurogane over. He has to swallow just looking into them because all he sees is the ocean and the man’s gaze is like an anchor, pulling something deep inside him, dragging him to the bottom of the fucking sea.

            The man is sprawled on the asphalt, head tilted back, looking up at Kurogane with this… _this expression_ — like he can't believe his eyes, like something horrible has happened and now he's left with the fallout, this disaster of apocalyptic scale, and he’s… he’s _terrified_ —and yet it’s Kurogane who feels like he’s been laid out.

            Kurogane growls and rips his gaze away from the man, and then stumbles back to his car. He leans over the rumbling hood and presses a hand to his forehead, trying to bottle up the feeling there, like something is _digging_ , trying to get out.

            “Umm, sir?” says a voice, and it must be the man, because who else can sound like that? So saccharine sweet that it makes his fucking teeth hurt, makes him want to turn around and break something?

            Kurogane all but snarls. “What!”

            But when he turns the man is looking at Syaoran with an apologetic look on his face. Syaoran looks just as confused, his eyes traveling to Kurogane before he steps forward.

            Slowly, the man lifts one hand and points directly at Kurogane. That horrible expression is gone, but the smile on his face makes him look like a fucking idiot. Kurogane can’t help but notice his lips and teeth that are stupidly straight in his face—

            “Your big doggy is scaring me.”

Kurogane stops himself from getting back in the car and running the man over.

            Barely.


	5. Scared to Say Your Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Syaoran wanted was a job, not to witness Kurogane almost commit manslaughter and scare the hell out of some poor girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again! If you're still reading after the last chapter then you rock haha. This is going to be more on Kurogane's and Fai's ~first~ meeting, which certainly won't be their last. I'm definitely looking forwards to making more angsty interactions, but for now have some confused idiots who can barely stand each other!  
> P.S. Foster the People is the bestest in the world and you should all go listen immediately.
> 
> Happy reading :)
> 
> ***  
> "And I'm scared to say your name,  
> I've cried wolf so many times..."  
> \--Nevermind by Foster the People

            Syaoran helps the man to his feet despite the absurdity of everything. Kurogane is still standing with his hip pressed to the metal of his car, trying to slow his breathing so he won’t commit a fucking homicide. Or have a heart attack.

            _Big doggy?_

            Certainly one person can’t want to die _that_ badly. But now that the man has said his piece, he suddenly seems to have lost some of his bravado. Not all of it; he still smiles, that same smile that makes him look like a devastating idiot. But he’s also quieter, stands behind Syaoran like the teen can be used as a human shield if Kurogane goes feral—he might. He’s so skinny that it would almost work too. From over the top of the boy’s head, he can make out the tip of his nose and eyes that are looking everywhere but at Kurogane. Kurogane is okay with that. He wants the man to stay as fucking far away from him as possible.

            Syaoran walks the man to the sidewalk while Kurogane manages to get inside the car and pull it up to the curb. Miraculously, the street has been empty the whole time besides their odd little trio, but who can say how long their luck will hold; Kurogane doesn’t believe in possibilities, only in being prepared.

            His legs feel almost worse than the first time he stumbled from the car, but the heat of the engine makes him sick, so he staggers away. His head is still pounding—but pounding isn’t quite right, not really. It’s like double vision. He looks towards Syaoran and the man and sees a fuzzy outline, like two images separated and then laid on top of each other, just barely out of alignment.

            Kurogane’s stomach is also beginning to clench and for a long moment he thinks he might lose his sandwich. Swallowing down the sour taste in his mouth, he leans his back into a light post and savors the cool metal on his neck, disgusting and germy as it may be. His t-shirt is beginning to cling to him with sweat.

            Kurogane wants badly to call Yuuko. His fingers are twitching for the phone in his pocket, for the number that he never added to his contacts—wouldn’t give the damn hag the satisfaction—but which he memorized over hours of sleepless nights trying to calm himself down enough to quit sobbing.

            But before he can, a bell jingles and a woman with short dark hair comes running out of the restaurant at the end of the block behind Kurogane. “Oh my god!” she cries, “Fai, are you okay?”

            And suddenly Kurogane finds himself in front of her. He doesn’t know how, or why, just that his feet moved and his arm is up, halting her progress. The woman draws to a stop, her face filled with alarm. She looks at the hand in front of her, and then follows it up to Kurogane’s face. He doesn’t know what she sees there—he doesn’t even understand what he’s even feeling anymore, just a strange kind of sickness that doesn’t make any sense—but whatever it is it makes her take a step back.

            “Fai?” she says, softly, like she’s looking for help, her eyes big in a heart shaped face.

            The air feels electric. Kurogane half expects bolts of lightning to appear from the sky and smite all of them. Maybe it’s God, if he believed in a God.

            Maybe it’s just his fracturing psyche.

            Kurogane lowers his arm and steps back, putting his weight back onto the post. Syaoran is looking at him in alarm and Kurogane almost feels bad. He thinks he should apologize to the kid; all he wanted was a job, not to witness Kurogane almost commit manslaughter and scare the hell out of some poor girl.

            And behind him, the man is… his expression is hard to decipher. All Kurogane knows is that the man is looking at him in a way that makes his mouth dry up, makes his bones _ache_. Kurogane meets his eyes and has to swallow down his heart as it jackknifes into his throat. There’s confusion in that look, a question of something—something—

            The world spins and Kurogane jerks his gaze away with a growl, taking hold of the light behind him. And the spell is broken.

            Once again the girl gives a little trot forwards and the man moves past Syaoran to meet her halfway. “Are you okay?” she says, her eyes glancing towards Kurogane in a way that really means _did he hurt you?_

            “I’m fine, I’m fine, Yuzuhira,” says the man in a cheerful tone completely inappropriate for the situation. “Just a scare.”

            “You’re bleeding!” she says indignantly. Kurogane’s head whips around and—it’s true. On the underneath of his hands, his palms are skinned and red. There’s bits of gravel and lint stuck to his wounds, and though it might not be a big injury, it most likely stings to all Hell.

            And Kurogane is struck. His stomach flips and he realizes that even if he was feeling sick before, he was nowhere near as close to puking as he is now.

            It doesn’t make sense. He’s seen things. Horrible things. Missing limbs and gaping holes and rotting wounds that barely even look like flesh anymore. One of Kurogane’s own comrades hid a wound on his foot, ignored it until it festered and turned dark, veins surrounding it like angry snakes. He’s _smelled_ the bodies. That stench that clings to your skin and holds on and reminds you of everything lifeless, everything vile and dark within the earth.

            But it’s this; the sight of blood welling on a stranger’s pale skin that almost drops Kurogane to his knees.

            He grips the pole a little too hard and the metal rings its protest. Everyone looks. Syaoran steps towards him and says, “Are _you_ okay? You don’t look so good, Kurogane-san.”

            He doesn’t feel good. But it’s clear that he’s putting everyone on edge with his antics. He aims for a nonchalant sigh that comes out ragged and confused. “’m good.”

            The teen doesn’t look convinced. Even the woman, who up until now has been giving Kurogane a glare that is vaguely reminiscent of a kitten, seems to decide that being professional is the right route.

            “You look a little hot, sir,” she says. “Come inside and we’ll get you some water.” And it makes sense. The uniform that the blonde sports is almost exactly what the girl wears, minus the skirt.

            The man offers the girl his arm and the two lead Syaoran and Kurogane to the restaurant. It’s well-lit inside from the noon sun as well as the candles scattered around the room. Only a few people are currently dining, old couples mostly who appear to be regulars by their conversations with the staff. A few waiters and waitresses look up when they come in, but quickly return to their work.

            The two workers lead them to the bar, despite Syaoran obviously being no older than seventeen, and Kurogane climbs onto the stool there. His leg jerks almost uncontrollably and he takes a hand and presses down until his foot aches from the metal stool.

            It helps, marginally.

            Not enough to slow his thundering pulse.

            The man dodges into the back through a beaded curtain as the girl, Yuzuhira, sets two glasses on top of the wooden bar and fills them to the top with ice water. Kurogane wants his, desperately, but doesn’t think he’ll be able to lift it without half of it ending up on his lap.

            He waits.

            The silence is so tense Kurogane can practically feel it pressing on him. His damp shirt is cooling in the air conditioning and its pressure adds to the stifling feeling. Syaoran sips his water quietly. He’s been remarkably calm for someone who has a loose cannon sitting next to him.

            Eventually, when the teen is munching on his ice and Kurogane has finally started on his drink, Yuzuhira excuses herself and steps around the bar. Her absence immediately takes some of the weight off Kurogane’s chest and he sags onto the bar, folding his head into his arms.

            “Sorry,” he says, muffled into his elbow.

            And then feels ridiculous, like a petulant teenager apologizing to his mother for breaking her favorite vase.

            He peers at Syaoran over his arm. The boy meets his gaze but he looks deep in thought. Slowly, he opens his mouth. And then closes it. Kurogane decides he’s fine with that; he just wants to go back to his apartment and sleep.

            The beaded curtain shifts, a soft tinkling sound filling the room over the sound of diners’ chatter. Kurogane is expecting the little spitfire girl to come back in and glare at him more. He starts to stand, already getting ready to tell her that him and the kid are splitting.

            It’s not Yuzuhira.

            The man stands there, peering at them. He’s wearing an apron that he wasn’t before and his hair has been pulled back into a ponytail that can barely contain the shorter pieces. On the backs of his hands Kurogane can see the evidence of bandages peeking around. Kurogane sinks back onto his perch.

            He has a name badge.

            Kurogane squints at it.

            “ _Hello! My Name Is:_ Fai,” announces the tag. Kurogane frowns _. Fai_. That’s what the girl called him, but it just seems so…

            It fits, and it doesn’t, and Kurogane has no idea why he feels like he should have any better idea what a stranger’s name is. _Fai_ steps forwards and slides two cards across the table. Gift cards. “This is a token of _Mulligan’s_ ,” he says with a million-watt smile. It kind of makes Kurogane want to crawl into a cave to never see the light of day again. “We deeply apologize for any inconvenience.”

            Syaoran reaches tentatively for his and slides it into his jacket. With how skinny the boy is, he probably needs all the free food he can get. Kurogane squints at his, then up at the grinning server. “The restaurant didn’t inconvenience me. _You_ did.”

            But he takes the card and stuffs it in his pocket.

            The man continues to smile, but something about it looks brittle, now. A little too close to cracking for comfort. Kurogane feels a diminutive satisfaction that he’s not the only one who’s reeling, though he can’t imagine what someone like this idiot would be so very terrified of. He thinks about pushing further, prodding at the man and his fake expression until they both fall to pieces.

            Instead he stands.

            When Kurogane turns and starts towards the door, he can hear the frantic screech of Syaoran’s stool as the teen hurries after him.

           “Keep your doggy out of trouble!” Fai says to Syaoran in a way that’s really all for Kurogane, actually means _I hope we never meet again._

           “Thanks for the water,” Kurogane calls over his shoulder which means _I agree._

            The delighted laugh—hollow as it is—let’s Kurogane know that Fai understands.

 

            Souma is still gone when they get back. It’s only the afternoon, hasn’t been more than an hour or two since she left in the first place, but Kurogane feels _exhausted_.

            “Wash the windows and go home,” he says, flopping into his desk chair and not even bothering to pretend he’ll work. Just about all considerable energy has gone into not murdering a stranger, and then avoiding a mental break down after that. But, for how much of a nightmare the whole day has been, it’s good to know that at least he’ll never have to worry about it again.

             If only his brain will stop feeding him images of panicked blue eyes.


	6. Gimme a Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some self reflection ensues. Also Yuuko has an introduction to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I know I'm a week late but I finally have the chapter out! I'm right now gearing back up for college so my updates may be a bit sporadic for a while. I am also trying to slowly up the word count per chapter though, so that at least will be nice! This one is a little more filler-y but it should be picking up again soon.
> 
> Happy reading :)
> 
> ***  
> "I'm alright, nobody worry about me,  
> Why you got to gimme a fight,  
> Can't you just let it be?"  
> \--I'm Alright by Kenny Loggins

          He thinks about staying in bed the next morning, and the morning after that, and then again. He doesn’t though. Kurogane gets up and makes his breakfast; eggs for Wednesday, oatmeal for Thursday, and whatever he still has left in the fridge on Friday.

          Souma never says anything about his or Syaoran’s disappearing act. She’s a good friend like that. She’s seen what he’s seen, knows what it’s like to watch people die in some cosmic sandbox, and she never begrudges him the time or separation that he needs.

          Kurogane wishes he could say the same; they’re equals. Or they should be. They went to basic at the same time, shipped out at the same time, moved in and out of different stations like pinballs being struck through a machine.

          So why doesn’t he… Why isn’t she like _him_?

          At first, Kurogane thought she was. For weeks, whenever the two met up they were equally jumpy. Souma pulled a gun on a man at a bar after he climbed into the wrong car. Kurogane stopped her from putting a bullet between his eyes, and all the while the man—so drunk he shouldn’t have even had his keys—tried to talk her up, asking for her number like she didn’t have a ring on her finger or a pistol leveled with his face.

          And then, like all wounds eventually do, Souma began to heal. It started with her laughing more. She picked Amaterasu up from work, throwing her over her shoulder and claiming that the two were going on a picnic and if anyone needed them they could just as well suck her dick (much to Amaterasu’s horror). She called Kurogane, crying like a baby, when Amaterasu told her the news. And, of course, she was the first to insist on moving into a real house— _we’re not raising our baby in a fucking apartment, Empress—_ and painting the nursery all by herself, only to eventually cave and ask for Kurogane’s help when it turned into a nightmare.

           Tomoyo told Kurogane about his friend’s nightmares. He’d been sweating and heaving over the toilet after a particularly brutal night, and the little woman walked in without a sound. “You both think you’re alone, but you’re not,” she said. “Maybe you should talk with her.”

           Kurogane had declined of course. Just because Souma had her own demons didn’t mean he needed to burden her with his. And sure enough, the bags slowly faded from her eyes. Her skin reclaimed its healthy color instead of the sickly pallor that Kurogane didn’t even notice until it was gone. She went out more, took Amaterasu on dates where loud sounds still made her tense, but the circles her wife pressed into her thumb calmed her.

           She’s not exactly his best friend—Tomoyo has taken hold of that spot in his heart and made it all her own—but she is perhaps someone who understood what it’s like to never really get back off the plane. Until now; slowly, surely, he can see her returning, with her wife there to hold her hand through the entire ordeal and the promise of a baby to keep her resolve.

           Kurogane is lying if he says he’s not proud of her.

           He’s also lying if he says he doesn’t hate her just a bit too.

 

            Yuuko doesn’t even bat an eye when Kurogane throws open her door without knocking. He supposes she’s used to it by now; weeks of someone slamming your door into oblivion whenever they enter must eventually desensitize her to the sound; unfortunately for Kurogane, even though he plans it, the resounding bang still sets his teeth on edge.

As they stare at each other in lieu of greeting, Kurogane thinks of telling her about the waiter. _I nearly killed a man because I almost killed him anyways when he ran in front of my car. I wanted to beat his pretty face to a pretty pulp. Aren’t you proud I stopped myself? Also my dreams still make abso-fucking-lutely no sense. How’s your day?_

            He decides that revealing his homicidal tendencies probably doesn’t bode well and settles on terse silence again. More of the usual. As much as Tomoyo promises him he’ll benefit from seeing a therapist, Kurogane can’t quite seem to figure out why ninety-five percent awkward staring and only five percent real discussion will make him feel suddenly better about his fucked-up psyche. And it doesn’t help that the conversation they do make—pithy as it is from Kurogane’s end—is useless. Kurogane asking about his nightmares, Yuuko being vague; Kurogane ranting about some idiot this or some idiot that, Yuuko giving sarcastic quips; Kurogane arguing against resurfacing memories, Yuuko being insufferably cryptic.

            It’s a vicious cycle that leaves his shrink a little to smug for comfort and Kurogane even closer to committing a murder-suicide.

            After the first ten minutes, Yuuko turns her attention to her laptop. Kurogane starts reading the few posters she has stuck to her walls. They’re almost as horrible as her overstuffed chair. He knows all of them, barely even has to glance at them before his mind takes over. First there’s a tree with the word “SUCCESS” in flashy gold underneath. “The easiest way not to fail is to determine to succeed,” says the poster. Kurogane doesn’t know what a tree has to do with success. The only thing trees succeed in are creating oxygen for more advanced beings.

            He scans each of the others, mouthing their ridiculous mantras until they turn into a pathetic slurry of “believe in yourself!” and “don’t give up!”

            And then he gets to his personal favorite. A man, standing next to a lake with a moon rising over the water. “Dreams are difficult to come by if you can’t fall asleep.” How unbelievably ironic. Really, it’s almost insulting. Kurogane barely sleeps anymore and yet his dreams rage out of control constantly, threatening to drag him in each time he closes his eyes.

            Something in the office mews and then immediately sneezes.

            Kurogane turns to his therapist who is still typing. “What the fuck?” he says.

            Yuuko looks up over the rims of glasses she doesn’t even need. “Hmm?” And then she glances at something by her ankle. “Oh, yes.”

            When she reaches down with deliberate slowness and brings an animal crate up on her desk, Kurogane kind of wants to vomit. And when Yuuko turns her eyes to him with a shit-eating smug look that might as well be a smirk, Kurogane wants to _break_ something.

            “What the fuck is that thing?” he asks.

            The thing in question is fluffy and white. Like a little steamed bun—but _hairy_. Its tiny face is set in what almost looks like a smile, with large blue eyes and a tiny pink nose. It must be some kind of cat. Really, that’s the only option that makes a single iota of sense. But the thing is also round, rounder than any cat has the right to be, and it looks at Kurogane and mews gloatingly with a little rosy tongue sticking out. Its paws are so _stubby_. And its ears are far too long to make sense.

            “Kurogane, these are the Mokona—” and fuck, there’s two of them, a black one curled up right behind the first in that little animal crate—“don’t tell me you forgot about your special meeting?”

            And the way she smirks tells Kurogane that everything in this session up until now has been to lure him into a false sense of security. He wants to rip his hair out from the knowledge that she’s played him like a goddamn fiddle.

            “I don’t like pets.” Which isn’t a lie, really. He’s never had a pet before, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t want one.

            “Mokona aren’t just pets; they’re companions,” says Yuuko.

            “Why do they have the same name?”

            She smirks more. “Why not?”

            When she opens the cage, the white round one is immediately out and hopping down from the desk. Its tiny legs carry it far too fast over to where Kurogane is and before he can even react it jumps onto his lap. Kurogane yelps.

            All he can think about is its claws, millimeters away from his very not-claw-resistant flesh, and the fact that its fur is probably wreaking havoc on his pants. “I don’t have time for a cat!” he snaps.

            Yuuko wags a finger. “Cats are very self-sufficient, Kurogane. All you do is leave them some food and they eat at their leisure.”

            Kurogane growls and gestures down at the purring mess in his lap. “If this is some kind of fucked up therapy animal, can’t I at least have something cool? Like a big dog?”

            His therapist outright laughs. “If you really find it necessary we can work on another animal being brought in. But I will tell you that Mokona have been trained for their work and they have some of the best results we’ve seen.

            “Plus, the particular Mokona you hold is remarkably outgoing. She’s very adventurous. I would even urge you to take her on your morning runs—within reason, of course.”

            “No way,” Kurogane barks. He isn’t willing to be the laughing stock of the entire city when he already has his therapist to joke in his face. “Absolutely not.”

            “Regardless of your thoughts, we’ll be sending you home with a harness for her.”

            Kurogane frowns at the cat crate. “Can’t I have the other one?” It’s just sleeping. Seems like a lot less trouble than the one in his lap which rolls and butts her head against his chest, begging for attention.

            “Unfortunately, no. He’s already been assigned elsewhere.” Yuuko closes the cage delicately in a move that crushes the last of Kurogane’s hope to weasel his way out of the conversation and ensuing cat ownership. “I believe you will find that your days remain very much unchanged—with the few additional tasks of food and litter maintenance. I’ve already taken the liberty of buying you a few toys, food, and a litter box—ah there they are now.”

            The door opens and a young man shambles in. His body is long and narrow, not unlike the server who Kurogane can’t stop thinking about, but his hair is dark and glasses cover his eyes. The glare he levels at Kurogane startles him.

            “When do I get my fucking cat back?”

            Yuuko laughs uproariously in a way that makes it obvious she considers both men in her office to be overly absurd. “Now, now, Watanuki-kun. They’re not _your_ cats.”

             “I take care of them,” says the man, but he turns his gaze on Yuuko. Kurogane relaxes, unaware that he’d been tensing from such a minor threat as a skinny kid. It’s bizarre to realize the sheer hold instinct has on his body, completely able to bypass all reason.

            “That may be. Here.” She holds out the carrier with the black fluff still inside. “This one will remain with you. And the other,” she studies Kurogane as he fights the urge to flinch away from the animal when it jumps at him, trying to nuzzle his face, “will remain with Kurogane here for a few weeks.”

            The young man scowls but trades his bag of supplies for the other cat, and then leaves without a word. His door slam, from such a skinny kid, almost puts Kurogane’s to shame.

            “This is for you, Mr. Suwa,” Yuuko says and gestures to the spoils across her desk.

            Kurogane huffs and can’t muster the will power anymore to resist. “Don’t I get a cat carrier?”

            Yuuko shakes her head. “I believe I mentioned Mokona is good on a leash.”

 

            Kurogane parts ways with the insistence that if the cat does anything—and he means anything—outside of the normal, he’ll be dropping by Yuuko’s house with a cat suck inside a pillowcase and a cleaning bill bigger than her mortgage. Yuuko chuckles and tells him to log, mentally or on paper, how being responsible for another being makes him feel, and asks that he bring the cat with him to his next session.

            She’s more polite to the fucking cat than she’s ever been to him.

            He doesn’t much like the idea of picking the thing up to take it inside his apartment, but Yuuko wasn’t lying when she said the little fluffball is adventurous. The moment he parks and starts unbuckling, her little head peaks over the window and she mews excitedly. Getting up the stairs with a white ball intertwining at his ankles and fifty pounds of cat supplies is still not exactly an easy task—even though Kurogane quickly denies help from the receptionist he passes. But he manages, and soon enough he has the door locked tight, his shoes by the door, and an extra addition of a litterbox in his hall bathroom and a cat sniffing his furniture.

            As soon as Moko or whatever-the-fuck-her-name is starts jumping on shit though, Kurogane about bursts a blood vessel trying not to throw the nearest table at her. “ _My_ couch,” he enunciates, shoving her off. “ _Your_ floor.”

            She jumps back up immediately like it’s a game and yowls. Kurogane isn’t an expert on animals by any means, but he considers buying treats just so he can throw them across the room to get rid of her incessant need for petting and games for a few seconds at a time.

            After an hour, he simply gives up and heads to his bedroom. _That door_ he slams before the cat can get any great fucking ideas.

            For the first time in a long time, he’s out almost before his head hits the pillow.


	7. All the Dirty Little Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Encounter number 2 with Fai goes more smoothly. Kind of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi ya'll, very sorry for the long absence. I've been trying to get back in the swing of things with school and on top of that I'm managing some club teams that have WAY more paperwork than expected. I think from here on out, until the end of school, I'll aim to post every two or three weeks, but if I disappear for a while it's just cuz I'm a bit swamped. With that being said, I will still try and up the word count and make sure that my updates aren't complete trash. Alrighty, I'll stop rambling now haha.
> 
> Happy reading :)
> 
> ***  
> "I won't find out  
> All the dirty little things that you've done..."  
> A Beginner's Guide to Destroying the Moon, by Foster the People

            The cat meows at him as soon as he opens his door. She meows at him as he drinks his coffee—black, how the fuck else are you supposed to drink it—and meows at him as he eats his customary breakfast. She meows _more_ when he closes the door and checks the locks before heading down the hall.

            Kurogane can imagine her at home shredding his furniture to bits all through the day and gets distracted enough that he actually almost punches one of his students in the face. It’s not his first slip up; he runs a gym so he’s used to physical accidents. People tripping on the treadmills, boys accidentally breaking each other’s noses with stupid ‘karate’ moves, fingers getting jammed in moving pieces. It’s the first time, however, that his accident is due to lack of focus.

            The whole situation rattles him so much that he almost drives back to his apartment just to lock the cat in the bathroom. He doesn’t of course. Souma would laugh at him. She already did plenty of laughing when he told her about the animal in the first place, and Kurogane refuses to give her the satisfaction of another thing to lord over his head. She’s definitely already texted Amaterasu if her muffled giggles from her desk are anything to go by.

            Syaoran is still showing up. He arrives at five-thirty every morning, shortly after Kurogane unlocks the doors. The kid’s a hard worker; Kurogane will give him that. Every task Kurogane has handed him the boy does easily with no complaints. If he doesn’t understand something then he asks, and as soon as he knows it well enough to function, he’s off to accomplish it. Kurogane admires that kind of grit. Even Souma has seemed to acknowledge that the boy won’t be leaving any time soon. When she brings in their morning coffee, Kurogane will sometimes see an extra hot chocolate snuggled in the drink carrier.

           

            For a blissful two weeks, Kurogane forms some semblance of a routine again. To be fair, he never really left his routine; despite almost running a man over, Kurogane was still able to be home by supper time. Earlier, in fact.

            Each night he gets home and Mokona greets him by twining around his ankles and meowing. The first night he almost face-planted on his way in the door, but now he almost enjoys having something sitting and waiting for him. In an odd way, Mokona gives Kurogane the same kind of comfort that seeing Tomoyo’s shoes by the door did; knowing that someone, somewhere cares that you come home to them is better than the empty house he’s been in for months.

            Kurogane even takes Mokona with him for his morning run the day before Yuuko’s visit. He’s so embarrassed by the little white fuzzball in a pink harness that he damn near turns around the moment his feet touch concrete. But that would mean losing time for running to useless moping.

            She keeps up well. Surprisingly. And she doesn’t stray from Kurogane’s side. While some of the other runners on the trail struggle to keep their dogs from chasing anything that moves, Mokona trots along on stubby legs like she knows exactly where the two of them are headed. It’s not perfect but… it’s nice. Kurogane enjoys it enough that he entertains the idea of taking her on his next run with Souma, but quickly scraps it; he doesn’t quite think he’s ready for that humiliation yet.

            Yuuko seems more pleased than ever with his progress. She cooes for a solid two minutes at his cat as soon as he walks in, and then proceeds to check her paws for injuries, her fur for whatever ‘vermin might be hiding in the back of Kurogane’s apartment’, and finishes her inspection with a belly rub that Kurogane is fairly certain is just to check that he’s feeding the little beast. Kurogane takes an almost gloating pride in the fact that the moment his therapist’s talons release the cat, her stubby legs carry her over and she jumps on his lap. In seconds she’s out, purring, and Kurogane spends the rest of his session with a cat on his thigh, detailing his time with her while Yuuko hides a smug smile (not well).

            Surprisingly, with only the few days he’s owned the cat, Kurogane already likes her—well, he _doesn’t hate_ her. And she keeps up well and isn’t high maintenance. And he guesses when she’s not tearing up his furniture she can even be kind of cute. Not that Yuuko needs to know that.

            So Kurogane finishes by saying that having a cat is “okay” and when Yuuko raises an eyebrow he tells her he has a place to be and leaves his appointment fifteen minutes early, the cat tucked securely under his armpit.

 

            Three and a half weeks after Mokona enters his little apartment, Kurogane takes her for her second run. She mews excitedly as soon as he reaches for the leash and runs tiny laps around his ankles. When he opens the door though, she’s all professional. After the third time someone runs past with a dog and the mutt goes haywire trying to get the cat, and Mokona doesn’t even bat an eye, Kurogane decides that _okay_ , he really doesn’t mind having her. And that she might be a little better than some stupid big dog anyways.

            It’s only six in the morning when they make it to the park where a few people are walking. From across the street there’s a gas station where individuals come out carrying steaming cocoa in the chilled air. Kurogane tries to avoid looking at them as he makes his customary laps. Three laps and he can turn around and make his way back to his apartment. There’s someone tall and thin, blonde hair and Kurogane forces himself not to look because the restaurant is halfway across town, damnit. And there’s some mousy girl and sullen college boy and—

            Kurogane yanks his attention back to his feet, trying to correct his breathing which is out of sync. It’s annoying that even though he hasn’t seen that— _that guy_ , in weeks, he still can’t get him out of his head. A bit infuriating even.

            Two laps and he can turn around and make his way back to his apartment.

            One lap and he can turn around and make his way back to his apartment.

            No laps.

            Kurogane has just stepped off the park grass and is getting ready to cross the street and return when a car backfires.

            The pop isn’t high pitched, and not even very loud. It doesn’t need to be.

            Images light up in front of Kurogane’s eyes; sand beneath his fingers as he crawls, the breath rushing in and out of his lungs so hard he can’t even control it, like someone else has taken over his body. Shouts. More pops and the sound of something big, heavy, hitting the ground. The taste of blood in his mouth; and how can Kurogane ever really eat again when he knows that this is what the world tastes like? Metal and ash and dust and everything that was never supposed to come home from the desert—

            Kurogane stumbles and almost hits the ground. He’s choking, though of course he isn’t. But his throat constricts and suddenly the air in his lungs is hot, too hot and the world boils around him. His hands almost fly to his throat to check that no one is squeezing him.

            Kurogane realizes distantly that he’s moving, slamming into the gas station. The woman at the counter looks up, startled, but Kurogane is too busy knocking into the display case—chips and candy hit the ground, and that’ll leave a fucking bruise right across his hip in large purple splotches—and storming for the bathroom.

            The cubicle looms in front of him and Kurogane is only two steps away when his knees give out. It’s an awkward slide, where his upper body hits the cubicle plastic and he manages to drag himself over, and that’s where he fetches up, on the floor against a toilet in a dingy, fucking gross bathroom.

            His forehead brushes the lip of the toilet and it’s a true testament to his churning thoughts that he can’t even bring himself to feel disgusted. His fingers and toes are numb and all at once he’d give anything for his stupid cat with her stupid warm little body pushing into his hands like always.

            And then he realizes—

            _The leash_.

            Kurogane doesn’t have the fucking leash. He turns wide eyed to his palm, like it’s some kind of traitor, and he’s _trembling._ Of fuck, oh fuck—this is—

            He doesn’t even know where he lost her. The little meat bun could be anywhere. She’s _adventurous_. And there was that moment, when the car backfired and Kurogane panicked because all he could think of was blood and sand and the feeling of something hot spraying across his face, and if he’s lost her out there then she’s already gone. Probably been hit by a car or swooped up by some giant fucking eagle—do they even have eagles in the city? But he also remembers stumbling into the gas station, knocking into a display case hard enough that he almost hit the floor. She could be in the shop. She could be _anywhere._

Kurogane tries to stand. He tells his body to get up, his legs to unwind. And yet all he manages is to slump further into the toilet, his throat closing. It feels like some kind of sick dream that he can’t get out of, and all he can picture is Yuuko’s face, the one skinny boy’s, because he _lost their fucking cat_ —

            The door creaks open behind him. Kurogane doesn’t move from his shaking crouch, can’t  form words with the way his whole chest clenches. His eyes flick nervously and he catches a glimpse of pale hair and a blue jacket and something white.

            For a long moment the feeling of eyes weighs on his back. If Kurogane could, he would turn and lob the extra roll of toilet paper at the perpetrator’s head. Instead he closes his own eyes and pretends not to notice. And then the man—because presumably it’s a man in the men’s restroom—clears his throat in an obnoxious lilting way.

            “Is this your… cat?” says a familiar voice.

            Kurogane turns.

            And there _he_ is.

            Fai. The waiter. The suicidal maniac who runs in front of cars. He stands there like some coy apparition, thin enough to blow over in the wind. His blue scarf matches his eyes in a way that makes them glow, and the perfection of his appearance—beautiful, poised, streamlined in a way that shoots straight through Kurogane’s better judgement to a more primal part of him—is all but unfair when Kurogane is huddled on the ground of a bathroom stall that likely hasn’t been cleaned since the 70’s. Something is in his arms.

            And there _she_ is, Mokona, with her little cat face scrunched up, making pitiful noises.

            Fai lowers her to the ground and instantly she scrabbles across the tile, pawing her way up Kurogane’s torso. He goes boneless, falls back on his ass and keeps going until his slide is forcibly stopped by the plastic cubicle wall. Mokona presses her face to the underside of his chin and proceeds to lay there like some kind of parasite, her warm little body pressed tight enough that he can feel the erratic beating in her chest. _This should be the end of it_ , he thinks. He’s found her. Or not him, per se, but here she is, back in his arms, and now he won’t have to deliver news that someone who was in his protection, who was his responsibility, is gone. All is right with the world.

            But his brain doesn’t get the memo. His heart races like it’s trying to outpace some unknown predator, blood thundering to his head in dizzying waves. Kurogane hears his own ragged breathing and can’t quite make sense of it. It’s fast, faster than it has any right to be, ripping in and out of his lungs like a hurricane in the making. And worst of all is the man standing not five feet away, watching Kurogane implode.

            Worse than _that?_ It’s not the first time.

            If Kurogane were the other man, he would run. Far away. And pray that he never crossed paths with someone so obviously unstable again. Instead, Kurogane sees Fai turn to the sinks, and can just make out the sound of the water running.

            His hand clutches at his heart as his vision tunnels in on bathroom graffiti. _For a Good Time call—_

_“_ Look here,” says Fai.

            And then he tosses a cup of water into Kurogane’s face.

            The shock is instant, his lungs constricting in a terrible moment of panic, and then it seems as though all the air in the room rushes into him, ribs heaving open in a bottomless vacuum. The water, for only being slightly chilled, sends ice straight down his spine. Mokono meows pitifully as it soaks her fur.

            Kurogane is on his feet before he even knows what happens. He has one hand holding his cat, and the other is buried in the waiter’s shirt, yanking him forwards until the man is stretched on his toes.

            “What the _hell was that_?” he roars. Water drips off the tips of his hair and onto pale skin, and Kurogane has to remind himself that he’s mad—fuck, he’s _fuming_ —and this man is once again the reason why, and prettiness doesn’t excuse him.

            But Fai doesn’t look scared. Hell, Fai barely looks fazed. He’s wearing a small smile that is both apologetic and smug, an infuriating contradiction that makes Kurogane’s blood boil. “The dive reflex.”

            Kurogane frowns and his arm lowers enough that Fai’s heels once again touch the floor. “ _What?_ ”

            “The dive reflex,” the waiter says again, slower. And he enunciates every syllable like Kurogane is some kind of idiot.

            “I heard you the first fucking time,” Kurogane scowls.

            The man in front of him sighs, like it’s become a burden just to be in the same room. “Water, Kurogane. Water on the face slows down the heartbeat, slows down panic. It’s a reflex. You should go to the sinks next time, not the toilet. The more you know!”

            It’s interesting. Makes sense, if he really puts his brain to it. And it’s true. His heart is beating hard—but no longer out of fear. He can breathe, for the first time since he stumbled into this dinky little gas station, and even though he’s shaking, he no longer feels like every bone in his body is loose and rattling around beneath his skin. It’s obnoxious that some blonde string bean is apparently coming to his psyche’s rescue, but at least he’s on his feet now. He also has his cat back.

            And then he realizes—

            “How do you know my name?”

            The waiter shrugs and yanks out of Kurogane’s grip. He fetches up against the sinks primly and crosses his arms. Kurogane half expects him to take out a cigarette and start smoking; that’s the kind of pose he makes. “I make it a point to know the names of all the people who want to kill me,” says Fai simply, with an almost repentant smile.

            Kurogane snorts. “Must be a long list.”

            The obnoxious laugh he hears tells him he hits a nerve. And then Fai strikes one of his own.

            “What branch?” he says and tilts his head.

            Kurogane looks over at the man, a new eye assessing. Fai acts dumb and vapid, but he knows more than he lets on. The guy is always watching. “Marines.”

            Fai nods. “Makes sense. You definitely seem like the kind of man who would go all out, just to prove he can.”

            _But I can’t,_ thinks Kurogane, _I tried, and I fucked up and now when cars backfire some stranger has to follow me into the bathroom and throw water in my face._

Instead, he says, “And what kind of man are you?”

            Fai stops. And looks at him. And continues to look. For just a few seconds, he isn’t wearing that calculating smile; his eyes almost seem darker. Sadder somehow. “Not nearly as brave as you are, I’m sure,” he says.

            For this first time, Kurogane hears a glimpse of truth in the man’s voice.

            And then his wall is back up and he grins. “Anyways, Kurogane, cat; I assure you, it’s been a pleasure. But alas, I have a beautiful girl awaiting my return.” Kurogane doesn’t like the way _beautiful girl_ effects his stomach.

            The waiter turns to go, and with his hand on the doorknob, looks back. “Stop by the restaurant sometime, won’t you?”

            And then he exits and immediately begins laughing to a small girl waiting outside the door. “No, no I’m fine. I _promise_ , Sakura. Pinky swear, I—”

            The door swings closed. Kurogane is left with a dripping cat and clothes so filthy he would almost rather burn them then allow them to contaminate his washing machine.

            He tries not to think about the blonde’s parting words, and definitely doesn’t think about how asking him to come by the restaurant means that for some reason, maybe Fai is just as curious as he is.

            It’s too bad Kurogane doesn’t associate with fools who so obviously spout lies at the drop of a hat. It’s also too bad for Kurogane’s psyche that his brain is already rifling through his schedule to see when he’ll be on that side of town next.

            He looks at the sopping fluff ball in his arms and she gives one pitiful mew, like she already knows he’s planning on betraying his morals.

            “Fuck.”


End file.
